Customs Now Accountable To Nigerian State than Ever Before

ABIOLA Seun |

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) yesterday said the Service under the Comptroller General of the service; Hameed Ali has become more accountable to the Nigerian state now than ever before.

Speaking to newsmen, the National Public Relation Officers of the service, Joseph Attah said the service has never been this accountable to the Nigerian nation than now.

He said, “I will say Customs under Hameed Ali has been more accountable. Customs of today is more accountable to the Nigerian state than ever before.”

He stated further that the reform embarked upon by the Comptroller General of the service, Hameed Ali has yielded more positive results than expected.

“Hameed Ali is doing lot of capacity building, training and retraining and doing lot of strategic redeployment and the third arm of the reform which is raising revenues is like the physical manifestation of the results of the two other Rs’ because when you restructure and reform, it is to arrive at a particular destination and this is raising revenue.

“You will recall that last year, we raised over one trillion naira which is an unprecedented revenue collections and this year by the grace of God and the way we are going, we are not only aiming at reaching last year revenues but to surpass it so to that extent, the reform is going perfectly well and is generating positive results for the Nigerian state.”

“The passion of the CG for fighting corruption, when he came on board, he made it a special point of focus that corruption will not be tolerated and how has he fought corruption? He has done that by giving out instant punishment to those who are culpable and rewarding excellence. You recall last year that some officers that were involved in arm seizures were dismissed and those who intercepted or could have collected bribe and allow the arms pass through, were promoted.”

Attah disclosed that the Customs CG had embraced technology to fight graft in the service and that the migration from NICIS I to NICIS II had helped increase the service revenue.

“There is this increasing use of technology, the service has migrated from NICIS 1 to II which is an improvement to the electronic platform we were using before and this has helped blocked the open channels that were making act of corruption and other vices doable in the past.

“This platform has blocked act of corruption and the chances of customs officers, importers or clearing agents to perpetuate corruption because it takes two to tangle because if customs officer is being compromised why and who is compromising him? So, once you take away the incentive by blocking leakages then you are fighting corruption.”

The Customs image maker also said that the Customs Comptroller General has introduced Customs Police to instil discipline among officers of the service.

Attah said the Customs Police unit which was created one year ago was not to arrest Importers or clearing agents but to check the excesses of Customs Officers.

“The Customs police is a new unit created by the CGC because we have never had Customs Police as a unit until now. We use to hear of military and Naval Police and others but now we have Customs Police created to instil discipline and fight corruption.

“They are not just there to arrest importers or agents for under declaration but they go there to arrest Customs officers and bring them to book including customs officers who had dressed wrongly. If an officer dresses wrongly he can be arrested so the Customs police is one of the tools in the hands of the comptroller General to instil discipline.”

The Hameed Ali led reforms to restructure, reforms and raise revenues have continued to yield positive results. We will see that in the past, there are retirements, review of cases of officers with disciplinary issues of some who were dismissed; some were reinstated and that is about ensuring justice because if someone has a pending case, he is neither dismissed or restored is like justice delayed and he has done quite a lot about restructuring and in reforms which is about attitudinal change,” he stated.